Note 133 — Chapter XI

We have already seen in the chapter on the West Saxon laws, that a bookmaker of the Saxon period appended the laws of Ine to the laws of Alfred, as if he found it natural to treat the old material as an appendix to the new.—But there is also something on the other side. In the after part of the Exeter book there are three batches of riddles, and the first riddle of the first series (Thorpe, p. 380), is a charade upon the name of Cynewulf, as was shown by Heinrich Leo. This has naturally led to the surmise that Cynewulf has had more to do with the riddles than simply to preface them in his own honour.